


Letters to the Lost

by Scribblesofaliar



Category: 30 Seconds to Mars
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-17 05:53:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10587786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scribblesofaliar/pseuds/Scribblesofaliar
Summary: I felt myself wondering how I managed to get here, to sitting around at a wedding feeling incredibly lonely, tired, and so exhausted.





	1. Memories

Today was the day.

It was a beautiful thing, watching two people you loved deeply fall in love with each other.  
I could remember the moment Shannon, four years ago on my own wedding day, grip my shoulder tightly and whisper in my ear “Ada, who is that woman?”

So much had happened over the past four years, that I could scarcely believe that something so good had happened through so much misery. 

Alicia looked ravishing, her long jet black locks spilling over her porcelain white shoulders. Her dress was black silk, slipping over her thin body like a long slip; she was every bit the rock and roll bride I imagined she would be - and her husband, my best friend in the entire world, had fortunately shaved for the occasion. Both looked so stunningly happy, and as I stood outside in the mezzanine area sipping a very full glass of whiskey, I felt myself wondering how I managed to get here, to sitting around at a wedding feeling incredibly lonely, tired, and so exhausted.

The breeze from the cool night air lifted the hair off my long silver evening dress and it prickled my neck, making me very aware of how warm my blood was getting, and how much I needed this drink.

“You look beautiful.”

That voice.

I turn to look behind me and find myself faced with the person I had been avoiding for the past two years; the same sharp jawline, now covered in stubble, the same slight crinkle to the corners of his eyes, the same high forehead and hollowed out round eyes with blue orbs as bright as the sparkling ocean.

He looked amused at my stunned reaction to his compliment, and I flinched.

“Jared,” I say, my lips ducking back to my glass of whiskey quickly, for courage. “Thank you, you look very handsome yourself.”

It was true - he wore a simple black suit and bow tie, with a rose tucked into his lapel. He was just as good looking as the day I met him, if not better. God, why did he have to always look so good.

The returned compliment almost raises him up a bit taller, his ever present smirk returning. I was swooning, I was sure. 

There was a moment of silence where we just looked at each other. He was older, age seemed to agree with him - I cursed under my breath - his movements were still sharp yet considered as he held a hand out to me and asked me if I’d dance with him.

I considered telling him no for a moment, it was truly not in my best interests to dance with my ex husband at my best friends’ wedding, who still tugged at my heartstrings like a lazy puppeteer.  
However I still took his hand, still let him pull me down into the quieter, darker, part of the garden where the music from the reception quietened slightly and the lights strung across the trees like little twinkling fairies winked at us from above. 

We swayed together for a moment, and I let myself calm considerably, realising he probably wasn’t here to hurt me, he was here to make nice for his brother and new sister in law.  
Our divorce hadn’t been a messy one, but we had definitely said hurtful things you should never say to someone you loved - things had been bitter, twisted, and it still stung that I had hurt him in ways you couldn’t imagine.

“Do you remember our wedding?” Jared murmurs quietly from my left shoulder.

I chuckle to myself. “Of course I do, I don’t think I could ever forget how wasted your mom was.”

A low rumble of a laugh falls out of him as he spins me around. “Her speech was so much better at this wedding, she actually finished it.”

My palms land on his broad shoulders and I look up to see him watching me carefully. 

“How are you doing?”

My stomach drops as if I wasn’t expecting that question. I so was.

“I’m good,” I force a smile “I’ve got another book coming out in the winter, the house is finally looking a bit more put together, you should see the garden, it’s beautiful.”

He smiles wistfully “I miss it.”

Technically, it was still his house too. It was in the country, a huge five bedroom place that was outrageously spacious and sat on a small lake that you could sit on the balcony and overlook as you ate your breakfast. We had bought it so that one day, our children would have large open spaces to their heart's desire, and we could have the band and our friends over, but that never happened.  
These days I hole myself up in the living room, avoiding the life that was once in the rest of the house, drinking coffee and writing my series of teen fantasy novels that have given me a comfortable amount of success. The house was now slightly dilapidated due to lack of care, and the thought of Jared knowing how I’d let the place go broke my heart. 

Jared hadn’t left until the divorce was finalised, moving to his house in LA with Shannon and making music with his band, Thirty Seconds to Mars. He still paid the bills, even though I could afford them, and still paid for a gardener to look after the lavender fields surrounding the house, which I was terribly grateful for.

“Shan got me to listen to the new album,” I tell him “It’s amazing.”

His eyes shine with pride and I resist the urge to reach up and tuck his too long hair behind his ears.  
He was holding me now, his arms around my waist and I realised we’d stopped swaying to the music a long time ago. 

“I don’t fucking care about the album, Ada.”

My teeth dig into my lip, and I know what’s coming.

“When will you let me come home?”

My hands fly off his shoulders and I try to move away from him urgently but he grabs my wrist. My pulse is slamming against my chest and I can feel the panic rising. 

“Jared, don’t…” I warn, trying to blink the tears threatening to spill from my eyes.

“Ada, please, just let me try - “ I pull myself free of his grip and find myself facing the open arms of his mother, Constance, who holds me as the shuddering tears start overwhelming me.

“Jared,” She says calmly, but with an underlying warning tone to her voice “go.”

I bury my face in Constance’s beautiful sequin dress, but I can still hear him let out a series of fucking fuck’s before storming off, back to the reception where the sounds of cheering and laughing floated out into the night.

-

We were in the bathroom, Constance, who I used to call my mother in law, and still acted like it, scrunched up a ball of paper towel and dabbed it under my eyes as I cried quietly.

“He’s been very quiet in the lead up to the wedding,” She murmurs, giving me the opportunity to tell her no, before continuing. 

“- obsessed with his work more than usual; I think he’s been as tortured about seeing you as you were him, darling.”

I suck in a breath “I just can’t do it, not now, not with him.”

She fixes me with a look and tucks her hand beneath my chin. “Oh, Ada, you always were the daughter I always wanted, but you’re too like me, I guess why he chose you.”

She grins, and I note the same jawline as her sons, the same sparkling eyes. 

“My son is a complicated man, the older he gets, the more obsessed with desire for something he is, and he is obsessed with his desire for you, you know that. If you cannot face what you went through with him, you never will, and two years have passed my angel - you need to deal with the pain, or you will forever be living with this.”

She was right, I knew it, but tonight was not the night for Constance Leto to be so goddamn right all the time.

-

It had been three days since the wedding, and Shannon and Alicia were off on their honeymoon. I had planned on staying in LA for another week, a meeting with my agent and publisher had been lined up while I was in town, and I found myself going to the places I had always hung out when I was ten years younger and hanging out with guys from a rock band.  
I guess I was still hanging out with guys from a rock band, just that one was on his honeymoon, one I had divorced, and one sat across from me at the most hipster looking cafe I’d ever seen in my life, stirring his quinoa salad thoughtfully. 

Tomo Milicevic grunted and pointed his fork at me. “I can’t believe they are having sex in the bahamas and I’ve been stuck listening to Jared re-tiling his own kitchen. He is not good at it, I tell you.” 

I snort “Did you ever think of telling him that he was particularly shitty at home renovations?”

Tomo strokes his beard, the sun hitting him in just the right light that it kind of looked like I was eating brunch with Jesus. 

“Ada, seriously, could you just come over and talk to him? He’s going mad. Knowing you’re here in LA, not a three hour flight away doing your own thing? It’s killing him.”

I sip my latte. My heart hammered every single time someone mentioned Jared these days; the conversation we had at the wedding weighing heavily on my mind, and Constance’s words afterwards - she was right, I couldn’t live with the pain forever. Maybe now was the right time to be recovering from what happened - two years was a long time.

“I just don’t know, what am I supposed to say to him?”

Tomo’s eyes softened, ever the joker, it was rough knowing that my drama effected his life too. 

“Ad, I know it’s hard to talk about, but what happened happened to him too, he has been suffering a long time too.”

I reach over the table to take his hand and sigh “don’t you think I know that?”


	2. Discovery

I had spent the afternoon with Tomo, he invited me back to the place he had bought in the heart of the city with his girlfriend Lola, where they plied me with wine and an assortment of vegan delicacies that to tell you the truth kind of all looked the same to me.  
It was night by the time I got in the cab they called for me, and before I knew what I was doing I was telling the driver an address that most certainly was not the hotel I was staying at.

I was a little tipsy, but I'd rattled off the address as quick as my tongue would let me.

"Lady, are you sure this is the right place?" Asked the driver when we pull up, big gates with an intercom rising up before us.  
It only took a little wave at the security camera, and the gates clicked open.

"I honestly hope it is."

 

Jared's house was a renovated classic italian style, cool tiles spread everywhere but the bedrooms that were beautiful polished floorboards, perfect for the LA heat.   
Everything was a basic white, the only thing that gave the feeling that someone lived there were the paintings, records, art pieces (forgotten about half way through putting the nail in the wall) and the fact that the entire first floor apart from the kitchen had been turned into a recording studio.

It was quiet - too quiet - without Shannon there, and my heels made loud clapping noises on the tiles where his drums would usually have drowned them out. 

I found Jared in the kitchen, wearing sweatpants, bare feet and a wifebeater as he siliconed a tiny tile the size of his thumb to the wall - I was almost positive that was at least mildly lacking in occupational health and safety. 

I place my purse onto a free space on the counter and prop my hip against it, watching as he tensed knowing I was there, but trying not to screw up where he was placing the tile.

After a few minutes of silence he turns around to look at me hesitantly.

"Ada." 

I cross my arms and bite my lip as I watch him rub the dried white silicone off his arms, in what I could only consider nervousness.  
Confident, almost cocky Jared was never nervous. This was not that man.

"Your mother is right."

My ex-husband clears his throat "Excuse me?"

"Your mother," I gesture wildly at him, as if he was responsible for making his mother so right all the time "she's always right, and it shits me."

Jared blinks at me as if I'd just told him I planned to marry his mother.  
"Yes, well, she's done a lot of living," he paused to scan my face carefully "what did she say?" 

An anxious frog rises in my throat and my stomach clenches. "That we need to talk."

The look of utter shock on his face was made more evident when his eyes darted around the room, as if searching for something.

"I wiĺl meet you in the living room." Clearly the alcohol had calmed my nerves, but faded enough for me to understand what I was doing - and I was scared shitless.

 

Jared appeared in the living room with two steaming hot cups of coffee about half an hour later. He still wore a look of absolute terror in his eyes, but had changed - he now wore a low slung singlet with the symbol for his band on it, and a pair of torn light denim jeans; his long dark hair with golden ends swung softly against his shoulders as he leaned over to hand me one of the mugs.

He settled himself across from me on the soft leather sofa, eyeing me cautiously.  
I don't know how to start or what to say to him, how you start telling someone you're sorry for ruining their life? 

"Jared…I…"

\- 

Summer 2013

I was tired, so very tired.

I had spent the night mostly awake, vacuuming, reading, lying there with my head full of excitement - today was the day that Jared was coming home from tour, and I was utterly jittery at seeing those smiling blue eyes again.

Of course I had visited him, one week I even stayed out there with the band, watching my husband change entirely to his stage persona several nights a week. Still, I had a book to write, and it wasn't going to write itself - so I'd left the boys and headed back home until he came back to me.

A car pulled up to the lavender bushes circling the property, and I saw him get out. My heart leaped - this was it.  
I sprung through the door and stood at the entryway, watching as he tossed his bags out of the car onto the lawn and strode towards me, a gleam in his eye.

He pauses to wait for me to make a move, and I do, launching myself at him, lips smashing together in a furious kiss. I feel him grin against me as he lifts me up and I wrap my legs around his waist.

I am walked into the house, where he takes no time at all to stride over to our bedroom and drop me not so elegantly onto the bed.

"Mrs Leto," he breathes, crawling on top of me to place soft kisses down my neck, his left hand working on the buttons on my shirt "you are the most beautiful sight I've seen in months." 

Jared had always been one for poetic words and big statements, he had been the first to say 'I love you', the one to propose, the one to choose to marry me on a cliff (a story for another day), the one who passionately described how he felt about me. I always needed a little nudge, something to soothe me before I got burnt.

Today however, I had to be the brave one.

My top was now open, and hot wet kisses were exploring down between my breasts, his hands now moving onto my jeans. My beathing was ragged, and I could feel the slow heat of my body rising.

"Jared," I manage to sputter, albit huskily.

He ignored me, his rough musicians hands on the bare skin of my stomach and hips. His touch was hot in comparison to the cool air filtering through the house, and I close my eyes to try to keep my head thinking straight.

One hot hand circles my right hip, fingers skimming along the line of my panties and back up to my right hip in a sort of semi-circle.   
The hand does it again, pauses half way, then begins again. I knew what he could feel - the tiny bump that wasn't there a few weeks ago.

"Jared, stop for a second." 

Questioning blue orbs peered up at me; it was alarming, I realised, how little he got told no when it came to me.

I grab his hand and place it back over my stomach, hoping he would get it before I said it. 

Cautiously, he whispers "what is it?" 

I glide his hand back and forth over the small bump, until his eyes grow wide.

"I'm pregnant."

\---

"I'm sorry."

It wasn't much for what had been done, two words were most definitely not sufficient enough for the world of pain I'd hurtled at him the moment I'd left all those years ago.

Surprisingly, Jared was quiet. It was hard to read him as he avoided eye contact with me, staring into his mug of coffee. 

"I know it's not enough, I know that."

He still didn't look at me.

My heart was doing flips, my stomach was clenched tight in anxiety, and it was starting to feel kind of hot in here.

I place my coffee cup on the table beside me and stand "This was a terrible idea, I shouldn't have come. I'll go."

It was only then that he turned his face up to look at me, and I noted that he was at least three shades paler. He looked angry.

"Ada, you do not get to walk out on me again."

Fuck.

I froze. He was furious. All those years I had spent imagining him being angry, I never thought I would actually see it.   
Jared had spent a lot of time since our divorce sending me emails, each one I moved quickly to a different folder, ignoring them. I had guessed he would be angry, angry about what happened, angry about me leaving, angry at everyone.

"You wanted to talk, then talk."

I stared at the man I'd known for so many years, the only man that could make me feel as if the world was blurry and clear all at the same time.   
I owed it to him to talk.

"You're angry." 

Jared shook his head "I wrote you so many emails, trying to get you to come back to me, to let me come home, you ignored them all. You asked me to move out and divorce you six months after the accident, you didn't explain a fucking thing Ada, you just closed off and ran. I am angry about that, but not the thing you want me to be angry about."

I bite my lip, staring at him as he rubbed the stubble across his chin in frustration.

"You should be angry about that," I could feel tears threatening to spill, and I blink rapidly to no avail, I could see Jared moving to touch me, but I flinch away.

"I killed our daughter."


	3. Haunted

“You shut me out.”

It was the truth. If Jared was anything, he was always right. He didn’t lie, didn’t sneak around things, he told you the truth, or wouldn’t say anything at all.

It had been a hot day when it had happened.

We’d had an argument about me driving when I was so tired, but I needed to get out. I felt like I was stifling inside that house with those big wide windows that let so much light in that while it was beautiful, I always felt like I was out in the open, always exposed to a world I didn’t necessarily want to be exposed to.

I’d woken up that morning exhausted. Pregnancy did not agree with my sleeping pattern, and I felt huge, tired, and ready to collapse. All I wanted to do was drive over to my mother’s house and try and get some sleep there.  
Jared was arguing with me, telling me I needed sleep and shouldn’t drive. He’d offered to drive me over, but I argued that I was fine, and that he was driving me nuts in that house anyway. I needed space.

I’d truly needed the sleep.  
At a particularly notorious intersection of traffic lights, a car had driven directly into me, running a red light, and I was too tired to notice a huge black car hurtling itself at me. 

We’d lost our baby, the trauma so bad I was rushed to hospital and declared that I was lucky to have survived it. I spent weeks in hospital, with Jared sleeping by my bedside every night, switching with Shannon or Constance whenever he needed to go shower or eat. 

They had all told me it wasn’t my fault, that there was nothing I could have done so save our little girl; but I have always blamed myself, if I hadn’t been so stubborn, if I had’ve gotten enough sleep at home, if I’d just let Jared drive me, we probably wouldn’t have been in that place at that time.

 

As we sat in Jared’s living room, I realised it was incredibly late.

“You didn’t kill her, Ada,” Jared said quietly “You need to punish yourself to heal the hurt, but it’s been so much time now, so much time without her, that you need to stop hurting yourself because of something that wasn’t your fault. You think you don’t deserve me, or our life together, but you do Ada, you do.”

I stare at him in silence. “If you will let me, Ada, I can forgive you for leaving, if you’ll let me.”

I sigh. “I can try.”


	4. Revive

“Ada, wake up, Ada…”

There was a rocking at my shoulder, a palm grasping me and shaking me until my eyes flew open in alarm.

Shannon had the same sharp lines in his face as his brother and his mother, his cheeks narrowing down into a chin already growing back the beard he’d shaved off for the wedding.   
His thick eyelashes and hazel eyes were covered by enormous aviator sunglasses he pushed on top of his head in order to give me the full effect of the glare he was shooting in my general direction.

“What the fuck are you doing up here?”

I blink rapidly to try and get my bearings. I was in a room that was not my own. It was Jared’s. Shit.

“I should ask you the same question, asshole,” I grunt, tugging my shirt down as I settle myself back up on my knees to look at my best friend “aren’t you supposed to be in the Bahamas?”

There was a flicker of something in his face, which he quickly shot down to continue glaring at me. 

“We came back,” was all he said “now could you please acknowledge that you missed me?”

I couldn’t help myself. I grinned wildly and threw myself into his lap, hugging him so tightly I thought I heard him squeak in shock.

“I missed you.”

It was good to have him there. Shannon always grounded me and made me feel like my head was on straight. 

“Ada,” He mumbled against my hair, kissing the red locks I was sure were probably sticking up like crazy into his face.   
“What are you doing in my brother’s bedroom?”

I crawl off his lap, feeling suddenly very defensive. “I didn’t just fuck him, if that’s what you mean.”

Shannon’s eyes bulge and he raises his palms in a gesture of surrender.

“Hey, no judgement here if you did, lord knows you could use it, girl.”

I glare at him. “We talked. We talked until 3am and then he let me sleep in his room. Nothing more.”

He smirks and then stands up, gesturing to the door. “Okay then, Alicia and Jared are making coffee downstairs if you feel like doing the whole getting-the-gang-back-together thing. Tomo’s coming over too.”

After a quick finger comb of my hair, and a bit of the old ‘rub your face until it looks like you woke up like this’, I head downstairs into the still half-tiled kitchen, where the newly crowned Mrs. Alicia Leto sat on the counter, sipping a mug of hot coffee and swinging her tattooed pale legs back and forth.

She squealed when she saw me, leaping from the counter to envelop me in a huge hug.

Alicia was born and bred in Detroit, a true garage punk girl. I’d met her years ago when Jared and I had only been dating and she had been my manager for a while, until she’d decided she wanted to manage bands, not writers with boyfriends in bands.

I noted she’d cut her long black locks into a short bob, which suited her just as much as the Bettie Page locks she’d sported before. 

“Ada, oh, fuck I missed you.” She blurted, almost spilling her entire coffee all over me. 

I met Jared’s gaze over her shoulder; he was slumped up against the other counter, a small smile along his lips, a golden glint to his usually icy eyes - I knew he felt the warmth of having our little family together again - it had been too long.

“You looked amazing at the wedding!” Alicia exclaimed, turning to grab her phone to show me some wedding pictures, presumably of myself. “Didn’t she look amazing Jared?”

I bite my lip and look back up to him again - he was staring. “Incredible.”

There was a thick fog that swung between us, and no matter how many things had been thrown through that fog to stop us, I still felt this magnetic pull towards my ex husband - the kind that made me want to run home to a cold shower. He was smirking at me now, he knew exactly what was going on in my mind.

“Alicia, christ, she just woke up, let her get some caffeine in before you bombard her with wedding pictures.”

I wave Shannon’s comment away, but gratefully take a mug from him as he passes it to me. 

I watch over Alicia’s shoulder as she flips through picture after picture of the wedding on her phone, one’s I’d already seen on facebook, but ignored for the sake of my friend’s excitement.

It was amazing to be in this kitchen, with these people I adored so much, completely amazed by how easily we could all just slip back into the way things used to be.   
Tomo arrived several cups of coffee later, and he and Jared got set on making pancakes together, arguing over measurements of flour and salt, Jared (kind of) expertly flipping them into the air.  
We ended up sitting outside on the patio by the pool, eating slightly crispy (burnt) pancakes, coffees served a little irish, rays of sun warming our cold bones.  
This was the way I’d remembered it, it’s how I’d wished it could always be.

 

Tomo was the first to speak after a while. “So what are you guys doing back here so early? I thought the honeymoon was going on for another couple weeks.”

Shannon and Alicia, who were curled up together on the outdoor lounge, gave each other meaningful looks. Shannon draped his arm over his now very nervous looking wife, and sighed. 

“We wanted to come back while Ada was still in town,” His gaze moved to mine, his brows knitting together.

I chuckle, trying to throw a knife through the tension that had suddenly bubbled from Tomo’s question.

“Why?” I ask “It’s not like you couldn’t just come visit me after the honeymoon, silly.”

I look at Alicia, whose teeth were now sinking into the dark red lipstick of her bottom lip, she looked like she might throw up.

“Alicia got a bit sick while we were away.”

I suddenly felt a figure sit down next to me, and fingers thread through my own. Jared was comforting me, why was he comforting me?

“We thought at first it was the flight, lack of food, you know,” Alicia spoke, and my heart thrummed.

Shannon smiled an almost sad smile at me, and I knew. I knew it was coming.

“She took a test while we were away,” He said, and I felt Jared’s fingers tightened on my own “We’re pregnant guys.”

I could feel the tears before they even started. My heart was being crushed, stomped on by some ridiculous god who joyed in the misery of others.   
There was a cold hard silence until Jared was the first to speak. 

“Congratulations you two,” He murmured, still not letting go of my hand.

I nodded through the tears, trying so goddamn hard to smile for them. “That’s amazing news.”  
Do not make this about you. Do not make this about you.

I felt myself moving up off the seat, making some fake excuse to get out of there, a hand still gripping my own, a voice whispering “Ada-”.  
I moved off the seat and into the house, I heard footsteps behind me, ran into the bathroom and spun around.

“Ada,” It was Jared. His blue eyes were shining.

“I can’t do it,” I was trying not to cry “I can’t be happy for them.”

I was shaking my head and suddenly his arms were around me and he was stroking my hair.

“Jared, it’s unfair.” I look up at him, my eyes rapidly blinking back tears. “It’s unfair that they get to have it and we don’t, that we don’t get to have her here!”

I bury my face in his chest as he holds me, and I’m suddenly beating my fists against his hard muscles as I scream and cry, soaking his shirt.

It was a long while until I was no longer sobbing. My head throbbed and I was pretty sure Jared’s shirt was by this point, see through.

“Ada,” he finally whispers, his hands still in my hair, tilting my head up to look at him “come with me.”

I blindly followed him. Once upon a time, this man was the one person I trusted above all else, someone I loved with my whole heart - today of all days, I wanted to trust him with my whole heart.

We drove. We drove for almost an hour until we got to a hiking trail, a huge hill rising up before us. Jared stopped the car with a lurch and gazed down at me “You ready?”

I stare up at the hill. “Not with these shoes I’m not.”

I indicate down at my heels, jeans and grey sweater. A smile quirks up on his face, and he leans over, clicking off my seatbelt. He then leans further down, and hooks his fingers around my stiletto heels and pulls them gently off my feet.

“Baby you’re getting carried, then you’re going to do as I say, okay?”

I take a deep shuddering breath and nod. Trust him.

 

Jared swings out of the car and opens the door for me, he then bends over and gestures for me to get up on his back, my legs looping through his arms and my arms around his neck. 

We make our way up towards the hill and suddenly it’s just me and him, my breath on his neck as he so easily holds me. I note that he barely even starts breathing heavily as we move upwards, trekking through quite heavy dirt, Jared’s shoes crunching along rocks and slopes. 

After what felt like so long, I found myself sliding off Jared on the top of the hill. I feel a slight need to grab him again, hold onto him and not let go. I manage to hold myself back as he gestures for me to close my eyes.   
Jared guides me along the earth, my toes covered in dirt by the time he stops me, and tells me to re-open my eyes.

“Okay, Ada, open your eyes.”

I open.

Between a small clearing of trees was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The city.

“I come up here for perspective.”

I soak up the twinkling lights, the sun setting in the background, the beautiful colours lighting up before my very eyes.  
Down below the buildings, below the cars, were little tiny movements - people.

“Perspective,” I whisper, my chest constricting. 

I thought of my beautiful friends, how it was such a miracle that they had found each other in this world, out of all those tiny people. How they were able to make a tiny person at all.  
My heart was thumping like a drum, and suddenly I felt arms on my waist - I spun around.

Big blue eyes, long dark hair, lips that looked like they’d been bitten and licked for hours, a furrowed brow - that was him, this one man who wouldn’t let me go, who had the stubbornness of someone who knew a good thing when he found it, and I thought maybe, just maybe, he thought that good thing was me.

“Ada,” the words didn’t come.

“I fucked up,” I said, my hands reaching out to tug the collar of his checkered shirt. “I fucked up so bad, and I don’t know how to get back from that place I’ve been hiding in.”

He spins me around, so I’m facing the city again, partly to make a point, and partly I think so I can’t note the way his eyes glistened at my words.

“In that whole world of people, all those tiny people, don’t you think that Shan and Alicia deserve a chance? Our chance may have come and gone, but don’t you think that we could help them? Use our chance to make theirs better.”

“I have to apologise,” I mutter “for freaking out like that.”  
“There’s another day. I’m sure they understood.”

I feel an arm around my shoulders, and we stand silently, looking out over the city of so many lives, so many intertwining lines of love and sadness and new and old, I felt like things were starting to click back in place, like my personality wasn’t just this depressed woman from the lavender house, she was someone who could get through trauma, and survive.


End file.
